August 01, 2017

At the 2016 Native American Music Awards, Spencer Battiest took home two things: a Nammy for Best Pop Recording for the album Stupid in Love and Taboo's phone number. Taboo, the 2016 Hall of Fame Inductee, rose to fame in the 1990s through his band, the Black Eyed Peas, to this day one of the best-selling pop groups of all time. "We heard Taboo was going to be there," Spencer explained. "So my brother, who is a hip-hop artist, made it his mission to get his phone number by the end of the night." It turned out Taboo wanted to talk to them just as much they wanted to talk to him. "He said he loved our performances and he had this idea to create a video with all the top Native artists to speak up for #NoDAPL. He said he wanted to be in touch in the next two weeks to get something together. This was late September when things were heating up so we were pressed for time.”

Fromleft to right: Zack “Doc” Battiest, Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas, and Spencer Battiest in the music video "Stand Up/Stand N Rock," which has more than half a million views on YouTube. Credit: Taboo

More than half a million YouTube views later, it’s no wonder Spencer is eager to talk about "Stand Up/Stand N Rock." “Taboo is so down to earth—the nicest man I’ve ever met,” he said. “It was such a cool experience because so many of us lived far away, but we recorded in our respective studios and it came together in this great song.” Once he produced the song, Taboo invited all the featured artists to Los Angeles to shoot the video. “I was performing in San Francisco that day, so my brother and I had to miss the full shoot with the other artists,” he laughed. “I actually didn’t get to meet everyone on the video until we were invited to perform at NYU a few months later.”

Battiest’s spotlight in the "Stand Up/Stand N Rock" music video was the latest accolade in an award-winning career. This week he’ll add New York and Washington, D.C., to his list of shows when the National Museum of the American Indian hosts him in its two public venues. On Thursday, August 3, at the museum’s Heye Center in New York, he'll take part in Native Sounds Downtown, a festival nearly two decades old. On Saturday, August 5, in Washington, he'll headline the 11th Annual Native Sounds Concert.

When I sat down with Spencer I wanted to learn how his career took off, but specifically what kept bringing him back to his heritage.

“I’m actually the third or fourth generation of singers,” he laughed. Spencer Battiest was born to two musicians on the Seminole Tribe's Hollywood, Florida, reservation. His father, Henry Battiest Jr. (Choctaw), grew up a part of the Battiest Gospel Singers. The family traveled the country singing. “Somehow they ended up down in the Everglades and went to a little Seminole church,” he said. “That’s where my dad met my mom.” At the time, they were both 17. They married a few years later.

SpencerBattiest in the video of his single "Love of My Life." Credit: Hard Rock Records

It wasn’t long before the young Battiest family imparted a love of music to their seven children. “My first memory on stage was when I was about four years old at my grandfather’s church in Oklahoma. They propped me up on the piano and put a microphone in my face.” His father—“a perfectionist and a big talent himself”—saw potential and taught him the basics early on. He credits a few great teachers and his school theatre department for showing him that he wanted to pursue a career in the performing arts.

In 2013 Spencer became the first American Indian artist to sign with Hard Rock Records. The choice to sign with Hard Rock was one that “felt like going home.” The Seminole Tribe acquired Hard Rock International in 2007. Under their leadership, Spencer performed across the United States and Europe. In addition, both of his award-winning music videos—“The Storm” and “Love of My Life”—play in every Hard Rock Cafe across the globe. “When people step into the cafe to have a burger, doesn’t matter if they’re in Ibiza or Houston,” he said, “they can learn about our [tribe’s] history from my song 'The Storm.' That’s just my small contribution at this moment.”

“I’ve always had close ties with my tribe since I was young,” Spencer explained. “As I push forward in my career and see how far I can go, I always carry my tribe with me.” Battiest’s reverence for his heritage is palpable in his interview as well as his work. Both of his music videos have had a Native director, actors, tech hands, and producers. “I love doing business with other Natives. That’s always been my thing.”

Spencerand Doc Battiest in the video for their single "The Storm." Credit: UnconqueredMedia

Battiest and his brother Doc filmed the music video for "The Storm" while teaching tribal youth at a summer camp. “I’d been in contact with Steven Paul Judd to help with my first music video,” Battiest explained. “When Doc and I were approached by our tribe to teach a course at the camp, we obviously wanted to have the kids’ help.” Judd and Battiest worked together to teach the course, all the while filming the music video. “The kids helped with tech, wardrobe, makeup, and location. By the time the camp was over, we had filmed almost all of the video.”

The video went on to win awards throughout the next year including Best Music Video at the National Museum of the American Indian’s 2011 Native Cinema Showcase.

Spencer is excited to work with the museum to showcase his music, both new and old. “We’ve been working really hard on putting together a show that highlights my entire career,” he assured. “Our songs are the stories of our lives. If we’re ever able to get up in a front of any kind of audience it’s always a blessing, no matter if there’s one person listening or 100,000 people listening. I love a challenge.”

The New York concert will take place August 3 at 5 p.m. on the cobblestones in front of the museum’s George Gustav Heye Center. The concert in Washington will take place August 5 at 4 p.m. on the museum’s Welcome Plaza (the main entrance facing the Capitol). In the event of rain at either venue, the concert will take place inside.

Sequoia Carrillo (Navajo/Ute) is an intern in the Office of Public Affairs at the National Museum of the American Indian. In the fall, she will be a junior at the University of Virginia specializing in History and Media Studies. During the school year, she works for the American History podcast and public radio program BackStory.

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August 05, 2015

The National Museum of the American Indian presents live webcasts of music and dance performances, lectures and symposia, storytelling, and other public presentations hosted by the museum, bringing Native scholarship and cultural arts to a worldwide audience. Programs can be seen on the museum's Live Webcasts page. Between events, the webcast page often replays recent broadcasts.

Indian Summer Showcase features two Native American Music Award (NAMA)–winners. The afternoon concert opens with the rock-based music of The Ollivanders, from Canada's Six Nations Reserve. Last fall Martin Isaacs, Ryan Mickeloff, and Ryan Johnson won the 2014 NAMA for Best Rock Recording for their album Two Suns.

Headlining the performance will be Dark Water Rising, members of the Lumbee and Tuscarora nations. The music of Charly Lowry, Aaron Locklear, Corey Locklear, Tony Murnahan, and Emily Musolino is described as full of soul, blues, and tradition. Dark Water Rising has won three NAMA awards, most recently Best Gospel or Inspirational Recording of 2014 for Grace & Grit: Chapter 1.

August heats up with an evening of discussion and music by the influential First Nations group A Tribe Called Red, recognized in 2014 as Canada's breakthrough artists of the year. A Tribe Called Red blends powwow rhythms and vocals with the urban influences of techno, dubstep, hip hop, and reggae to create a unique musical style. Their songs, visual art, and stage performances champion issues faced by Native Americans.

The evening begins at 7 pm EDT in the Rasmuson Theater with an artist panel featuring group members DJ NDN, 2oolman, and Bear Witness. The concert in the Potomac Atrium follows at 8:30 pm EDT.

This year the museum's hosts the 6th Living Earth Festival. Living Earth shares sustainable living practices from traditional indigenous perspectives and celebrates Native music and dance. The webcast program will provide a cross-section of programs and performances from the three-day event.

A healthy diet is a key component of sustainable living. The symposium On the Table: Creating a Healthy Food Future promises a wide-ranging conversation about sustainable farming, the impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the conservation of heritage seeds, and indigenous approaches to the environment and harvest. Speakers include Ricardo Salvador (Zapotec/German–American), senior scientist and director of the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Robin Kimmerer (Citizen Band Potawatomi), award-winning writer, scientist, and professor; and Clayton Brascoupe (Tuscarora/Tesuque Pueblo), director of the Traditional Native American Farmers Association.

Saturday the festival presents live performances in the museum's beautiful Potomac Atrium. This year Living Earth presents traditional singing, drumming, and powwow style dances by the Youghtanund Drum Group.

Guate Marimba will perform Guatemalan folk music played on the marimba, drums, turtle shells, maracas, and whistles to accompany traditional Mayan dances performed by Grupo AWAL.

Music and dance at Living Earth: Left: Youghtanund Drum Group. Right: Grupo AWAL.

Indian Summer Showcase intersects with the Living Earth Festival on Saturday afternoon when Quetzal Guerrero (Native American, Mexican and Brazilian heritage) headlines the first of two concerts to be webcast live this summer. The man with the blue violin returns to the Potomac Atrium stage to wow the audience with his fusion of Latino, jazz, blues, and hip-hop originals.

On Sunday the museum will webcast one of the festival’s signature events, an Iron Chef–style competition. Native Hawaiian chefs Kaimana Chee and Robert Alcain compete for bragging rights as they create a full course meal in which every dish features a special ingredient that is indigenous to Native America. The secret ingredient? Tune in to the live webcast to find out!

Chef Kaimana Chee.

Stay tuned for future posts about webcasts planned for this fall and winter.

If you're in the Washington, DC, area this weekend, July 17 through 19, and would like to know more about the Living Earth Festival at the museum on the National Mall, the symposium program and festival schedule are available online.

All photos are used courtesy of the artists unless otherwise credited.

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December 01, 2014

Behind the scenes during the production of RUMBLE, Rezolution Pictures films an interview with singer Tony Bennett at his studio in New York.

RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World, a feature-length documentary film about the Native American contribution to popular music, will premiere at Sundance in 2016. Made by Rezolution Pictures—creators of the Peabody Award–winning documentary Reel Injun—RUMBLE will tell the story of a profound, essential and, until now, missing chapter in the history of American music. These photos give a look into some of the recent interviews being filmed with music icons talking about who some of their largest Native individual influences are.

Musicianand actor Steven Van Zandt at Renegade Studios in New York City.

RUMBLE springs from a partnership between guitarist Stevie Salas (Mescalero Apache) and Tim Johnson (Mohawk), associate director for museum programs at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and New York, while putting together the wildly popular exhibition Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians In Popular Culture.

TonyBennett and Catherine Bainbridge, a writer, director, and producer of RUMBLE.

Up Where We Belong—which was on view at the museum in Washington, D.C., from July 1, 2010, to January 2, 2011, and in New York City from August 4, 2012, to August 11, 2013—celebrated the fact that, for nearly a century, Native people have had successful and influential careers in virtually every form of popular music. The exhibition told these musicians' stories and histories and provided visitors the opportunity to hear music and discover artists with whom these exceptional musicians collaborated. Visitors also learned of the musical greats who inspired these artists, as well as the growing number of contemporary performers who follow in their path.

TonyBennett on camera for RUMBLE.

“Whether they basked in the limelight or played supporting roles, Native musicians have made an enormous contribution to American music as we know it today,” says Kevin Gover (Pawnee), director of the museum. They forged new sounds, worked with some of the greatest names in the music industry and inspired current Native and non-Native performers who continue to build on their legacy, and we are proud to honor them.”

RUMBLE focuses in particular on the last 50 years of this cultural history. In Rezolution Picture's description, "Starting with the birth of rock and roll and following through to the present day pop, RUMBLE will take moviegoers on a personal tour through musical eras and themes, giving them a new understanding of these Native musical pioneers, while showing the history of contemporary music in a whole new light."

All photos by Tim Johnson (Mohawk), NMAI, taken during interviews for the documentary film RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World.

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August 09, 2013

Quetzal Guerrero, accompanied by percussionist Leo Costa, at the National Museum of the American Indian. Washington, D.C., July 20, 2013. Photo by Maria E. Renteria, NMAI.

The singer and multi-instrumentalist
Quetzal Guerrero filled the National Museum of the American
Indian’s Potomac Atrium with the music of his roots. Guerrero has Native
American, Mexican, and Brazilian heritage, making this music one of a kind.

Guerrero visited Washington, D.C., as part of the museum’s
2013 Living Earth Festival. Guerrero played at the festival’s Indian Summer Showcase
concert Saturday night, July 20. If you missed the concert, or if you were
there and want to re-experience a fun night, video is available on the museum’s YouTube
channel.

NMAI caught up with Guerrero to talk about his music
and his blue violin.

Tell us about
your background.

My mother is from Northeastern Brazil in a city called Recife,
which is in a small state called Pernambuco. She is a musician. She’s a
classically trained pianist since the age of five. She raised us all
playing/learning classical music from an early on age.

She played a lot of Brazilian guitar. She taught me bossa nova. My
first Joe Beam song, she taught me how to play that. She is very musical.

My father, his name is Saco Guerrero. He is an artist, muralist,
mass maker, chicano artist. He actually published various books. He’s a native
of Arizona. His family has roots from Northern Mexico, Yaqui Indian from
Durango. He also has heritage from the Juaneño tribe, from the
San Clemente area in California. He is a native of the Southwest. He is fifth-generation
born and raised in Mesa, Arizona. My great-great-grandfather was actually one
of the founders of Mesa, along with a lot of Mormon settlers. He was non-Mormon,
took part in building the community. So I was raised in a very artistic, creative
family, doing a lot of music and doing a lot of visual art. It gave me the
direction and visual of who I am today. That is my background in a nutshell.

Your mom
is the reason why you play the violin?

Yes, my mom is definitely the reason. My mom taught my dad. He
played an Andean flute, called the quena.
They had a musical group that they performed and traveled with even before I
was born. So I was pretty much born into the music, performing and playing ever
since I was a young kid. It was part of my daily activities and daily life. So
when I was a child, my mom wanted to choose an instrument that I could play and
have a discipline to study. I was watching Sesame Street, and I saw Itzhak Perlman perform
and saw kids too playing the violin. “Mom, that is what I want to play.” I was
like three or four years old. So she said, “If that is what you want to play,
we’re going to get you lessons and we are going to start learning.”

I began
to study in the Suzuki Method, which is a very popular method used to teach
young children how to play at very early age. What you do is you learn by ear first,
before you learn how to read. As oppose to the school system that teaches you
read and play at the same time, so the prerequisite age is much older. You can
start [that way] when you are nine or ten, because at the point you already
know how to read and write. The Suzuki method is kind how you learn how to
speak. You learn by listening and mimicking, and then you learn how to speak. You learn how to read and write later.
That is the method I learned my violin on.

Later
on, around twelve years old, I began to sing. I started taking choir classes at
school. I started teaching myself guitar. My mom also taught me some guitar. I
learned a lot from musicians around in the environment that I was always in. I
was always around a lot of very talented and experienced musicians. I was always
picking up different things from everybody, kind of practicing it and trying to
learn as much as I could. That is a little bit of the history my musical
upbringing.

I moved to Los Angeles about eight years ago. I think that was a pivotal
point in my musical growth. Anybody who knows about Los Angeles—it is a mecca
of the entertainment industry. Immediately moving to L.A. I was connected with
some very, very talented and driven musicians. I started to working and performing with them. It really helped
me to elevate the level of my musicianship and composition and playing. I think
L.A. again has an important role in my musical development .

Why a blue
violin?

I have about six violins. I have a traditional classical violin, which
is cherry red; that one I use specifically for recording or practicing or
certain types of sounds I want. I have a series of different types of electric
violins. Playing with a live band or playing with amplified music, the violin
gets drained out and disappears in the sound. I actually saw a country
violinist, when I was 13 or 14, with a blue electric violin. I went crazy, “I
need one of those, I want one.” He gave me the information where I could get
one. So that blue violin is actually my first electric violin, which I
purchased when I was 14. I’ve had it ever since then. I love it. I have several,
but that is the one I’m most comfortable with. I also think people remember.
People will always remember the blue violin. It stands out and catches the eye.

Do you
have any pre-show rituals?

Not really. I am not a very ritualistic kind of guy. I really try just
run over the song list and envision the set list of songs I’m going to do. Visualize
a little bit of my performance, how I’m going to perform, my presence. I try to
warm up, practice a little, get the jitters out a little, feel comfortable with
my instrument. That is pretty much it. I don’t have anything crazy I do.

I can hear
the cultural influences in your music. But how do you explain that to people
who don’t know what bossa nova is or other different musical styles you
incorporate. Your music can fit into multiple categories. How do you explain
your music?

That is the thing: I really try not to explain. I try to get the
listener hear it and get their own experience from it because there are so many
subtle rhythms and influences that happen inside the music that if you are not
aware of them, you are not even going to register. I think that more important
than defining the music and trying to tell people what it is, is having them
feel it. The connection of rhythm and song and music in general is that it is
universal and that everyone can connect to it. So I really try to be like, “You
just have to hear it.” I can give you a list of influences, where the things
come from and where they go. But
if you’re not educated or aware of those styles, it is not going to mean
anything. I think that what is more important is the message of the lyrics of
the songs and how they make you feel.

The feeling that a song and music has, it permeates anyone
regardless of their understanding of music or understanding of language. I try
to focus on the feeling and intentions behind the music and rhythms. As opposed to trying to explain it or
make it relatable to most people. I find that when you explain something that
is foreign to them, it closes people’s walls. If you just play it, they
immediately take to it and understand it. That is the only thing I am always
trying to tell people, because that is the first thing they ask, “What does it
sound like? What kind of style is it?” I feel that is so limiting, so putting
inside a box.

That is something very westernized in our way of thought. “What
tribe are you? Where are you from? What language do you speak?” Anybody who
knows anything about history knows that we are all mixed. Everything comes from
everywhere. We are mixed together. So I try to find common ground, especially
with the music.

What
projects are you working on?

I have a new branded album that we just finished recording and
mastering and that I’m going to start releasing hopefully this fall, if I get
everything together. But if not, it might be at the end of the year or next
year. That album is called American
Import. I feel like that title is something that kind of defines who I am.
I’m a Native American and American-born citizen, but I’m also a world traveler.
I have been all around the world. I have Brazilian heritage and have been to
Brazil many times.

I feel more a world citizen than American, but I am very American
in my perspectives and in my cultural upbringing. I was born and raised here.
So I think what I bring in this album is something very familiar. I am touching
a lot of American folk, rock, and blues influences, along with rhythms from northeastern
Brazil and [elsewhere in] Latin America and things like that. I am importing
something that is American and familiar to everyone, but it has that little
taste of something exotic. That is [what’s behind] the name of my next album, American Import.

Thank you
for the interview.

No problem. Thank
you.

—Maria E. Renteria, NMAI

Maria Esmeralda Renteria is an intern with the National Museum of the American Indian’s Office of Public Affairs. She is pursuing an MA in Museum Studies from the San Francisco State University and received her BA in both Latin American Studies and Spanish at UCLA.

Comments (1)

To the author of this site, do you know if Quetzal Guerrero and Leo Costa would be open for an interview? I greatly enjoyed this articles and Guerrero offered me an insight into music from a different perspective I have seen before. They could in return gain some new exposure to my audience and share knowledge on my site.

August 02, 2013

Ozomatli, a two-time
Grammy Award–winning band known for the musical mixing of Latin, hip hop, funk,
reggae, jazz, rap, and other genres, visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of the American Indian as part of the museum’s 2013 Living Earth Festival. The
Los Angeles–based group played the headline performance at the festival’s Indian
Summer Showcase concert Saturday night, July 20. If you missed the concert, or if you were there and want to relive it, video is available on the museum's YouTube channel.

NMAI caught up with Ulises (Uli) Bella, saxophone, clarinet, requinto jarocho, keyboard, and melodica player, and one of the founding members of Ozomatli.

Ozomatli in the Potomac Atrium of the National Museum of the American Indian. From left to right: Ulises Bella, Asdru Sierra, Raúl "El Bully" Pacheco, and Wil-Dog Abers; not shown: Justin "El Niño Porée, Jiro Yamaguchi, Walter Valdez. Washington, D.C., July 20, 2013.

Ozomatli is a Nahuatl word for monkey. Who actually thought of it, or
was it collaborative effort?

When we first started we were called Todos somos Marcos [we
are all Marcos], in honor of the Zapatista Movement in Mexico. But then our
drummer [Anton Morales] said, “Yo, we should call
ourselves Ozomatli.” We were, “What’s that all that about?” He’s like, “It’s a
monkey on the Aztec calendar, the god of dance.” We were, “Wow, that is really,
really hip.” He’s like, “The new harvest, the orchestrator of the jungle. . . .”
Little did we know that it was his astrological sign the whole time. He
basically named the band after himself. That is Anton from L.A. A big shout-out
to Anton! We stuck with it. I don’t know too many bands that have a prehispanic
name. It’s pretty crazy.

Do you have any
pre-show rituals to pump you up?

Not really. People are pretty mellow in this band. We’ve
been a band now for 18 years, so we don’t do too crazy, except we drink a lot
of coffee usually and just start pumping ourselves up. Most of our shows are pretty high
energy. So you catch a sweat, no manner what.

How did you start
your own coffee?

We had this collaboration with a friend of ours who runs a
coffee shop in L.A. called Zona Rosa. He does his own beans. One day he was
like, “Yo, I want to do Ozomatli coffee, do an espresso thing.” I was like, “Oh
yeah, yeah, let’s.” We are coffee-heads, so it worked out really well. Even
though it’s kind of a small thing we do on the side, it’s really fun.

Ozomatli at the National Museum of the American Indian. Foreground: Uli Bella; background, Walter Valdez on drums.

I know that you’re
the go-to band for theme songs, since you did the Los Angeles Dodgers’ song. If
you could assign a theme song for this museum, what would it be from your
music?

Wow, it’s pretty heavy because you’re going to think, historically,
what Natives or Americans Indians have gone through in their history. It would
have to be a song that really resonates super, super, super deep, I think. To
even try to grasp the magnitude of all the complex, complex issues that deal
with that community.

So, if I was going to say one, just because it’s uplifting,
beautiful, and hopeful, because that’s what I think the community needs, “Ya viene el sol,” which
means, “Here comes the sun.” It’s all about seeing the sun come up. Obviously,
the sun means so much to so many people around the world, such a heavy thing.
Bringer of life. At the same time, the idea that tomorrow is going to be a better
day through unity and helping each other out.

What projects are you
currently working on?

We actually are recording an album. We just finished a kids’
album this last year. Now we are doing a full-length album this year.

Is there a particular
reason why you did a kids’ album?

Part of it is because we realize that a lot of our fans are
having kids. I think it was just a fun idea to try out. It ended being real
liberating, because not all the songs have to be about heavy things. It could
be about skateboarding, germs, and washing your hands.

Thank you so much for
the interview.

Thank you.

—Maria E. Renteria, NMAI

Photos by Maria E. Renteria, NMAI

Maria Esmeralda Renteria is an intern with the National
Museum of the American Indian’s Office of Public Affairs. She is pursuing an MA
in Museum Studies from the San Francisco State University and received her BA
in both Latin American Studies and Spanish at UCLA.

Great interview. I'm not real familiar with Ozomatti, but it sounds like they're a very unique and interesting group. The combination of instruments in their group is great, I love to see something different than your standard "play this guitar, those drums, and this guy will sing" kind of bands. Thanks for sharing

Incredible music, never heard of Ozomatti until the other day, phenomenal sound! It has a certain... Ayahuascan quality to it. You might enjoy this... https://soundcloud.com/escape-by-night/ashesanddust - whenever I hear it, I imagine native American Indians for some reason, even though the instrumentation is a larger blend of world styles. Keep up the awesome work, guys.